January 7, 2009
Book of Library Photographs Reprinted With New Introduction

Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole Writes on “Love of Libraries”

Press Contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217

“Library: The Drama Within,” with photographs by Diane Asséo Griliches and a new introduction by John Y. Cole, the director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, has just been reprinted in an edition published by Bunker Hill Publishing.
The diverse and extraordinary black-and-white photographs range from the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress to the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence and the library in Sarajevo, which has since been destroyed.
Each of the photographs is accompanied by an appropriate quotation, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends … ” or Pete Hamill’s exhortation to a passer-by at the New York Public Library: “Hey, young man, hurrying by … mount those steps and enter. The world awaits you.”
According to Cole, “As Diane’s compelling collection of photographs makes clear, somehow there is nothing quite as poignant—or as meaningful—as the magical combination of library, book and individual reader.”
Says the photographer Griliches: “Libraries [are] one of the very few institutions on earth where any soul may walk through its doors free and depart enriched.”
“Library: The Drama Within,” published in association with the Center for the Book, is available for $35 from the Library of Congress Sales Shop (www.loc.gov/shop/) or by calling (888) 682-3557. It is also available in bookstores nationwide and online.
The volume was originally published in 1996 by the University of New Mexico Press in association with the Center for the Book.
The Library of Congress, the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, is the world's preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled collections and integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Many of the Library’s rich resources and treasures may also be accessed through the Library’s Web site www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a new, personalized Web site at myLOC.gov.
The Center for the Book was created in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading. For information about its programs, publications and national reading-promotion networks, visit www.loc.gov/cfbook/.